The question is easy to answer, because the fox eats almost everything. Although he prefers, if he has the opportunity fresh meat, such as wild rabbits, young hares, but also birds, insects, snails and worms. Likewise, he finds mice and rats tasty and he rounds out his diet with fruits and berries that he finds in season.

The fox eats everything

This is meant in the truest sense of the word. Because the fox is an omnivore and certainly not a gourmet in some things that he eats in the course of his life. For even a dead animal, which has already been decomposing for several days, does not deter the fox from eating it. He also enjoys the waste that we humans leave behind and eats his fill.

How the fox finds its food

The fox is a nocturnal animal and so the time for foraging begins at dusk. This includes both hunting and finding edible things that he does not have to hunt. The twilight he creeps through his territory until he meets prey. An experienced fox occasionally succeeds in killing a fawn or capturing sick and decrepit deer.

This is all the more astonishing because the prey animals are sometimes around 15-20 times the body weight of the fox. The fox rarely succeeds in this, but it is reported again and again by hunters. Far more often, however, smaller animals are the preferred prey of a fox. Again, he prefers sick and weak animals so that his hunt is not too elaborate and he can make easy prey.

If it finds a dead animal, it even prefers it and feeds on it. Due to the fact that the fox is a scavenger, hunters also call him the health police of the forest.

Does the fox eat berries?

As have already described above, the fox, of course, eats berries. He loves to eat the sweet fruits. But he clearly prefers the berries that have a sweet taste or at least a sweet aroma. Through his sense of smell, he can clearly distinguish here which berries are already ripe and therefore sweet or ignore them, because not yet ripe.

The fox thereby eats directly from trees or bushes, or specifically sorts out the best fruits from the ground. The fruits he likes to eat include mirabelles, blueberries, plums, cherries and much more, the only important thing for him is that they are sweet.

During his forays through the household garbage, he finds special treats, such as cookie scraps or even chocolate. This means a real feast for the fox. Since the fox is a really smart fellow with a good sense of direction, he will head for such a place again and again to find similar tasty things.

This good orientation ensures that a fox is always seen in the same places. For us humans, this means that we look for foxes at our compost and at the garbage cans. Fox tracks should keep a lookout. If there are traces of food, the trash can should be additionally secured, because a fox will also knock it over if it suspects something edible in it.

What does the fox eat? - Danger lurks in residential areas

When foraging in residential areas, the fox also exposes itself to greater dangers. In cities and associated residential areas, man is certainly the fox's greatest enemy. Not that particularly many people, intentionally kill the fox, but the number of foxes killed by vehicles is alarmingly high in residential areas.

Thus, tens of thousands of foxes die on the roads every year, without counting the animals that are killed by hunters. A hunter who takes care of his territory has to kill a fox for various reasons. These include diseases (rabies) or that the number of foxes in a territory becomes too high and therefore a population maintenance must be made.

This population management must be done because the fox has hardly any natural enemies left. Larger predators that were once native to our forests, such as the lynx or the wolf, have become extinct in large parts of the country. Even the eagle owl, which kills and eats young foxes, is now rarely seen in the wild.

Feeding foxes, useful, or not?

Again and again it happens that people put out food for foxes out of misunderstood love of animals. You should not do this under any circumstances. Because foxes can become tame through feeding and thus no longer rely on their instincts. Therefore, you should observe the following rules:

• Never feed a fox.
• Shoo away foxes as soon as they are no longer shy of humans.

If a fox becomes too trusting, then it will also meet other people without fear and expects them to eat something. These people will become insecure and call a hunter who will have to shoot the animal to calm the people down. Therefore, the safest and easiest way to avoid this scenario is not to offer food to the fox and drive it away from residential areas.

We hope that we have answered the question: "What eats fox?" to your satisfaction. If you still have questions about the various animals in your garden, we look forward to your feedback.